Let's put blame where it's due and say that this whole process started in 2008 with hope for change summed up as "yes, we can", which got changed to "no we can't". Both the continued bailouts and the massive tax payer subsidies to insurance companies called obamacare. In 8 years not a single banker was put in jail for the massive fraud that sunk the economy and Obama flat out lied about his promises to have a public option in health care. Obama won in 2012 against an establishment candidate and by getting black voters to turn out. in 2016, the democratic party sold out by playing favorites against Bernie and Hillary couldn't bear any competition for the spot light so she passed on Warren. Hillary has played defense since summer and just hoped trump would sink himself without her even attempting to change the narrative. Trump won because people who dislike him voted for him because they thought he could mostly affect change. And that's why Hillary lost, all she promised was more of the same.

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It's funny how I disliked the guy over a decade ago and I barely remember why anymore, but as a documentary filmmaker who sees things and interviews people that the media ignores, Moore had valuable inside knowledge to points 1-4 of his post, especially point #4. This election result really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. A lot of voices in this country were vastly underrepresented and fed up with how badly the political system was ignoring their needs. For the people who had nothing or lost everything from their jobs to their savings to their homes in poorer parts of the country, what was Hillary and her big financial friends going to do for them when the seeds of their anger were planted during the financial crisis 6-7 years ago? Voting for Trump was a Molotov thrown at the establishment in Washington.

If you read the Facebook comments beneath Moore's post (hint: don't), you'll see that many people still don't get it and probably never will because they have their heads too far up their asses. They still blame anybody who didn't vote for Hillary. To steal a Trumpism: Wrong.

Don't blame those you don't agree with for the choices that they've made in this election. Aside from it being a trait of a petulant, sore loser, those people have a story to tell and you haven't been through what they have to reach the point where voting for Trump sounds like a good idea. It's ridiculous to write all of them off as just being plain old sexist, racist, xenophobic, and/or uneducated. Some of them are, sure, but I'm not so sure they make up the vast majority as those on social media and in mainstream media portray them to be. For every person who sprayed a swastika on a public wall today, how many people didn't? On top of that, since I've been exposed to online communities for 20 years now, my troll radar also questions whether those people who did it were Trump supporters or just sore loser Hillary supporters trying to make Trump supporters look bad.

Was voting for Trump the right action? Only time will tell, but the early sentiment is a resounding no. I've made myself clear in previous threads about not liking him. I am not holding out much hope for the success of his presidency because he is a authoritarian of insatiable ego much like Hillary, but rather than continuing the elitist tradition of politicians who are openly shady and willfully out of touch with their constituents, Trump is a complete loose cannon and wildcard. Electing him wasn't the ideal way to do it, but he is the enema to the political system for those who felt disenfranchised by it. The RNC got theirs already. It's up to the DNC to either take theirs now or continue to self-immolate and give up 2020 as well.

I can't believe I'm linking to a Cracked article, but if you haven't spent time trying to learn about the thought processes and the experiences of Americans who are completely unlike you, then you severely misjudge how drastically different people's lives can be elsewhere in this vast nation of ours.

Irv wrote:I can't believe I'm linking to a Cracked article, but if you haven't spent time trying to learn about the thought processes and the experiences of Americans who are completely unlike you, then you severely misjudge how drastically different people's lives can be elsewhere in this vast nation of ours.

You know what Irv, when I read your previous post I immediately thought about that Cracked article link that you just posted right here. I read this Cracked article immediately when it was released a month ago when someone on my FB feed posted it up in response to the "Trump Phenomenon" as he calls it. This was a pretty damn good quality article DESPITE it coming from Cracked.com of all places.

It was definitely an eye-opener, and at the same time.........it basically highlights how completely divided the United States of America has been for the last decade and a half or so.

As open-minded and respectful as we all say we are, we have been very neglectful to our brothers and sisters out in the countryside. And they weren't gonna let it go unnoticed either.

That is why I made this comment earlier in the thread

big_j_NY wrote:We lost to POOR, RURAL, MIDDLE AMERICA

I was not joking or sarcastic when I made that statement. We really did lose TO THEM

I've contemplated sharing these articles with others over the last few days, but I think it would be a lost cause because a lot of people prefer their echo chambers and pity parties.

I believe we have some great minds in these forums who are more inquisitive and analytical than most, regardless of what our initial impulses may be. We have people here who are willing to give a little more thought to these matters in depth beyond what the media tells us, even if we don't all share the same views. Hell, we're Knicks fans and the media has shitted on us for decades now. If anybody is of the mindset of wanting the media to fuck right off, we should be damn near the top of that list.

The media told us Hillary had this one in the bag. They treated Trump like a joke. They were too arrogant to understand that mocking and alienating tens of millions of voters and branding them as all being racist, misogynist, and xenophobic is not a winning strategy. Same goes for the DNC. Now they're looking for excuses to blame everyone but themselves on how wrong they were and how out of touch they were with reality.

I may not be happy about Trump winning the election, but I am very happy that the both the media and the DNC are scrambling like cockroaches right now because this is the comeuppance that they've deserved for a long time for misinforming the public. Unfortunately, even though a few individuals in the media and DNC have already spoken out, I don't think they will collectively learn their lesson, so we'll have to just settle for them squirming uncomfortably instead of actually taking responsibility for helping Trump get elected.

Surprisingly, I am actually not very political at all, but I do take an interest in the sociology of politics, and dealing with the way people react to various stimuli is very relevant to my career as a user experience designer. However, I primary deal with people interacting with user interfaces. The way people interact with other people unlike them is on another level that thankfully is not part of my job description because we've seen the worst of it this year and I can't even begin to envision a good solution for it.

I agree with your posts and got a lot out of those articles. I thought it gave a valid perspective. The fact that I would have to think twice before even trying to approach that subject with most of my friends and family is kind of alarming.

I'm kind of curious what everyone's thoughts are for 2020. I liked O'Malley a lot, I thought he said a lot of good things in the primaries and was probably setting himself up for 2020. But would you guys vote for Obama if he were willing to serve a 3rd term?

Obama's done. He can't serve a third term by rule of the 22nd Amendment of the US Constitution.

Too early to be thinking about 2020, but since the DNC was so hellbent on running Hillary this go around and she was so obsessed with identity politics (e.g. "I'm with her"), if they really care about having the first female president, Elizabeth Warren and Tulsi Gabbard would have been far stronger candidates without decades of beltway baggage attached to their names. That said, Tulsi has no chance as long as any of the current cronies remain in place at the DNC since she resigned from her vice-chair position earlier this year due to them trying to censor her.

Living abroad it's tough to get a good read on daily life in America, but it still seems to me that it's got the best living standard in a world. It just blows my mind that someone who works as a a waiter can afford a car and their own apartment. I don't think that's true for any other country in the world.

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That was sort of my belief all along, but you can't ever be too sure with Trump. I hope that guy is right, because I'm not a fan of Trump's early rumored nominations for cabinet positions, but I'm also done reacting to the hysteria. I'd rather not give US politics another thought until after the inauguration.